Der Traum ist Vorbei
by Sleepless-actual
Summary: An original story made for creative writing. A world damn near shattered by war, two friends say goodbye. And go into the great unknown.


Prologue

A soft wind blows tugging the grass with it, the only light comes from Luna. Lit brightly and surrounded by stars. A lovely night in the beginning of March, as for the two young friends it was a night of thoughts and soon to be made of promises. Kara, age 12 has brought her very good friend John, age 10 to this massive field.

John thought, then voiced his thought "Do you ever wonder what will happen in the future?"

"I guess, why do you ask?" Kara turned ever so slightly.

"Maybe, maybe someone in the future is looking back thinking 'what happened for things to get to this point'?" John replied softer this time.

"If that happens can we promise that we can protect each other?"

Kara grasps his hand softly "I promise you, okay John"

CHAPTER 1 A Price Paid Heavily

Her eyes are closed, breathing slower than ever, she relishes in that memory of 12 years ago. Her body both sore, and relaxing, she slowly opens her eyes once again, John is replaced by her helmet. The scenery remains, she clenches her fist, she's not finished yet. She has a promise to keep.

The scream of a missile rang her ears, slamming the ground a ways away behind her helmet, it's lighter out now the memory is gone. Adrenaline begins to flood her veins, she moves her helmet gives it a shake and slides in on her head. She finally concentrates a bit more only to hear it yet again.

"...can we promise that we can protect each other?..." Echoing endlessly in her mind.

"...protect each other…"

"...protect…"

That word echoed in her head continuously, growing in pitch by the second. She turns her head only to see constant war, tracers, contrails from missiles and aircraft, the dirt she's kneeling on has been stained red from the blood. Kara spots her rifle tuning out the memory and finally listening to the screams of fear, agony, and adrenaline. She reached for her rifle and hoisted it up and shouldered it, searching for hostiles, clear. She stands and ready for a regroup when she hears it.

"..Kara...I need you…" she heard the distinct sound of his carbine clicking.

"What's your position!" Her heart began racing. She checked her rifle, waving two troopers to her.

"..Mortar...sight char...charlie…"

"What is your current status?" Silently directing the troopers, they began their trek to the sight.

"I'm… Fine...just...I'm... fine…" He began coughing something up, this only urged Kara to run faster, only for separate comms to blare to life.

"Sergeant! That general retreat is standing orders! Now leave whoever is out there! It's too late for them!"

Kara stopped at this thought "leave them?"

No reply.

Kara gathered her strength, and looked upon the dying men and women. The Gobi Desert Campaign proved to be costly to the Allied nations. But this thought never struck her before until now. Now that John could be added to the perpetual list of dead.

"Corpsman! When we reach him I need you to do what you can to help him, Private! I need you to provide any covering fire ne-" she was cut off when the troopers head exploded spraying her right side with red and small bits, only adding a new layer of grime and adding a thick copper stench to her surroundings.

"John!" Kara slid into the mortar site with the corpsman in tail.

The corpsman began bandaging, cauterising, and disinfecting "Ma'am, are you b-" his eyes rolled back, falling to his left side after spraying some dirt red, landing with a sickly smack. A distant crack of a rifle could be heard in the seconds following.

"..I...knew..y..you'd c..come..." Kara gripped his hand tightly, his grip was loosening slowly.

"We had a good run Kara." Her eyes began watering, tears stinging more than anything, he stroked her cheek softly, as he always did after a long and hard day.

John was slowly bleeding out, the medic was now dead and Kara working frantically to apply her limited knowledge on medical to her fallen friend. She placed gauze over wounds that refused to be stopped, all the while tears felt like scalding hot water to her skin. He continued wheezing and hacking up blood, his hand slowly moved over a medium gear bag, his remaining moved to her hand and grasped with his wavering strength.

"Kara...stop, it's too...late.."

"NO! We're supposed to take care of each other..!" Her hand tightening on his and pressing gauze to a wound cluster.

"And we did..." His face scrunches while moving the bag to her "For twelve...long and...amazing years.."

She pulls the bag to the side and grasps his other hand, his status tag relayed information to her Heads Up Display. And none of it was good, all ranging from Subdural Hematoma,collapsing lungs, internal bleeding, leg fractures, kidney shutdown, heart failure, severe spinal injury, blood remaining 3.2 liters. 'DEATH IMMINENT' began flashing across her HUD, urging her to rip her helmet off tossing it to the side. Off in the distance Allied sirens could be heard, alarmed she hoisted the light duffel bag over her shoulder, shoving a comm piece, beginning to drag John hoping to clear the zone.

"CLEAR THE ZONE! CLEAR THE ZONE! THE SULACO IS LAUNCHING A FIGHTERWING AND BOMBER GROUP! THEY'RE GLASSING THE ZONE!"

"This is Bakersfield Revenge, firing solution is set, depleted uranium/high explosive 105mm, Sub Nuke Mirv salvo is set, awaiting confirmation!" Her Comm set began screaming in her ear of units trying to pull out of the zone. Many asking delays, others asking for cancellation.

"This is Charlie-1 with Second Battalion, Twenty First Marines. Operating on MBP-9, sirs give us twenty mics to evac all remaining units out there, this platform has a dozen helo's prepped for extraction!" Kara continued dragging John trying to quicken her pace but only to yet again stumble and fall over.

"Kar...Kara..go..." Those two words felt like daggers in her chest, she dragged further only for him to yell it, gripping her hand tightly even for his current status. Refusal was her immediate response.

"They're sending evac John! We only have another half click to the extraction point!"

"We wouldn't make...it with me here..go...thank you.." He gathered the last of his strength for his last few words. "...for all these years, I love you so very much.."

Gathering her own strength to say farewell to her only family was tough "I love you to John." she grasped his hand tightly until his completely loosened.

He lay still, not a breath drawn, not a word. A few things snapped in Kara, a couple in her chest and head. She payed it no mind at the moment as she tore his dog tags off him and grabbing the picture of him and her out of his breast pocket. She stood up slowly and began her run to the evac site. She was the last to arrive, her Sergeant Major approached her...livid with her.

Jabbing his finger in her chest and yelling "What part of General retreat do you not understand! I ordered you to leave whoever was out there! You cost us two more troopers! Was it even worth it!?"

Almost silently she replied "Yes..he said he knew I'd come..."

CHAPTER 2 A bug?

Kara stumbled out of her tent, shambled a few more feet and lost the contents of her stomach. A few airman and marines looked at her, a couple wandered over to assist her, though only to be too late as she had already gotten on her feet and began walking back in her tent. She did think that MRE was a bit on the older side of edibility. The Gobi desert likely didn't help its condition either, sitting in 122 degree fahrenheit for weeks on end and suddenly being exposed to 50 degree weather. She sat down on the folding chair and began cleaning Johns' rifle again. She found it touching that he named it Kara, after her.

The loss of her friend hurt enough, but it was what she said to him that really bothered her, she didn't know if she truly meant what she said to him in those final moments, they had told each other, no, promised each other not to get emotionally invested, to the point of insubordination. She had ignored orders, so that had to of been a red flag of her feelings, but she had done that many times before the war. Again as she had done the last five weeks, she buried those feelings down and bolt the door closed. She didn't need to feel this way just before the ceasefire ends, so as always she prepped her gear. The next real blitzkrieg is supposed to be in Jing-Jin-Ji, or the ruins of it. The city was supposed to house over 130 million people but the infrastructure fell to pieces and the civilians inside weren't getting food shipment, that and rushed building of the city caused structural issues in the buildings. It didn't help that the PLA felt it necessary to carpet bomb the city. All it is now is an ash covered graveyard of a massive concrete jungle. Seeing as most of the trailways are less that 50 meters wide with about 20 meters of head room. Courtyard are just about 100 meters in diameter with enough room for a chopper to drop off some relieve gear.

She memorized all the information in the briefings and in the dossiers. They recommend .300 blk cartridges or 7.62x39mm cartridges. 9x19mm are standard People's Liberation Army handgun caliber. They still use the 7.62x39mm, she came to a rather difficult consensus take three rifles and one handgun, really unpractical, too heavy, too much equipment, too bulky. She'd use the .300 blk rifle first and collect the SKS cartridges on her way, 9mm is second priority. She sealed the mid size equipment pack, no issues in packing, she slides a stronger strike plate into her plate carrier, places the lighter ones in her pack, filled up two camelbacks, four canteens, six MREs, small med kit, spare .30 carbine rounds and mags, optic backups, as well as batteries, spare shortwave radio. Goddamn it's going heavy.

She paused for a few a minute thinking, "What the hell was up with that MRE? This will be twice in two days." She scurried out of her tent to empty the contents of her stomach yet again.

"You okay there, Horrigan?" A shock trooper asked, she managed a thumbs up.

CHAPTER 3 Aus Der Traum

The drums of war rattled yet again, well blitzkrieg. The USAF Air Fleet was engaging in ship-to-ship firefights with PLA Assault Carriers, Mobile Infantry was moving into the continuous catacombs of the former city. The helo landing sites were being used as missile batteries by the PLA, initial hits on the USAF fleet proved to be a highly regarded threat to the point of using the rather large supply/command support ship as a shield. The USS Ronald Reagan, a Punic class Supercarrier being just over two and a half miles long covered the batteries line of fire from the fleet. This was the ships last fight as he began dropping section of the lower cargo bays, a hundred to be precise. With the Reagan going down soon it would be costly in the resource department to move all this equipment especially since the allies cnt send another Supercarrier without it requiring an escort fleet able to protect it enough to fly over enemy controlled airspace.

Kara along with thousands of other troops fought their way through the tunnels, having to protect the armored column was rather tough, the PLA were dug in pretty good. Again she and her many allies were not deterred from their act of killin' dirty commies.

"First missile site is coming up! Prep for helo landing and take care of those commies!" Kara yelled, it was a rather easy task that was terminated swiftly.

"Da' Reagan is goin' down! Hae took too many for da' fleet Ma'am"

"Shit, what do we do without all those relief batches!?"

"The cargo is gone! This was anticipated!"

"What in da' hell happen' up there?"

"Shit! Where's it going to crash!? On us or them!?"

Comms crackled with the main channel "All units! All units! Pull back, this is a general retreat order. Three other PLA battle groups just arrived! USNORTHCOM has decided to do an orbital bombardment on the area. Alpha to Gamma company switch to NAVCOM."

Being part of Gamma company, Kara switch to it. "You are now receiving nuclear orders. Authorization: KILO 4 7 9er BRAVO WHISKEY TANGO FOXTRO 2"

Returning to the main channel Kara found immense chatter, all in refusal of retreat. Many with her agreed, some even began packing more gear onto an APC. "Retreat, hell! We just got here!"

"RETREAT HELL! RETREAT HELL!" The comms ran loud with that phrase. Final stand.

CHAPTER 4 Mutual Destruction

"Pull back! Pull back! Gamma you're in deep with no cover, you got PLA closing in on you!"

The mission was still successful but at great cost, the Reagan and its crew were lost, companies Alpha to Delta were wipe out by PLA PLA defense fleet took a side beating, and reactor breaches, the assault fleet took orbital bombardment. The PLA soldiers were either shot, crushed, or incinerated. Echo made their exfil, at the cost of most of Gamma company. What remained of Gamma was on the run through the slowly burning ruins of the megacity. Command guaranteed evac for the 12 remaining members of Gamma, but they were being pursued by the PLA and they were already crawling on the landing zone. The Quad Tilt Rotor was inbound, Gamma was starting to arrive. Kara, who had been the lead gunner saw it at the last second the grenade in the road, too late to dodge. The last thing she thought was "What would John have done...would he ever forgive me for failing him.."

"Horrigan! Get up the evac is here." Kara came to faster than ever.

Her heart began beating louder in her ears, vision beginning to tunnel, breathing quickens. She grabs the m1 and begins running with the trooper. She hears it again, that word. Protect. Protect. Protect. Everything seemed to slow as she ran, the evac ship was getting pounded, the small crew fighting as much as possible. She began raising her rifle and taking shots at the PLA personnel. She felt every little action, felt the recoil, felt her feet barely hit the ground, she saw the soldier raise his rifle to her. Before she could react however, she felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen, her surroundings began spinning barely able to shoulder her rifle. She collapsed on her knees taking a shot at the PLA, she hit her mark only falling back on some debris, the pain was searing lower down. She felt for what the cause was, then she felt it, an entry wound bleeding heavily, the world around her was still slow, heart beating faster and faster. She gathered her strength yet again and began firing at the PLA soldiers hoping to give them more time to escape, as she fired she felt so much understanding than she had in a lifetime. She understood how John must've felt now, she understood that she didn't, couldn't love him the way he loved her. She understood over a decade of unspoken words with knowledge that it was too late. The dropship began weaving toward her; to pick up the near dead hero.

Waking weeks later to a slow residual pain in her lower body. Feeling around her stomach only to find a large surgical scar where the wound would be. She felt sick but fine all at the same time. Kara would inevitably find out she was in various conditions, one that would be a live reminder of John. Yet she lost it all, inevitably going back to see action yet again. But now, now the war seemed so different to her, now she felt the horrors of war, the losses, the pain, the fear. But she continued on, into the great unknown.


End file.
